In article , Christian
McArdle writes
Yes, but the leakage is likely to be quite high though. Even more so
when the water is running.

The IEE did a series of tests of water in plastic pipework and determined
that the resistance was sufficiently high on a 1m section of pipework to
reduce leakage current from a direct live to be below a safe value. Indeed,
fresh water would give about 2.4mA for mains through a metre of plastic pipe
to a good earth, which is pretty safe. Obviously, dirty water is likely to
give greater leakage, but it is probably still enough over that distance to
keep below 30mA, which is what an RCD protects you for.

I'll have to find a guinea pig to experiment with sometime)

In bathrooms, the regs tell you to electrically isolate and not bond any
metalwork if possible. If that is not possible (i.e. it uses metal
pipework), then it must be supplementary bonded, as a second best measure.
Domestic kitchens don't have any requirements for supplementary bonding at
all.

Christian.



--
Tony Sayer